Dark Side of the Moon
by MissFaerieKaiti
Summary: Mulan, "I'll Make a Man Out of You", with Naruto characters. Contains song's lyrics, but not exactly songfic. Read and review, please and thank you! x3


**Yep, so here goes nothing, "To be a Man", from Mulan. I'm cowriting the entire movie Naruto-style with a good friend and amazingly awesome writer, Neji and TenTen 4ever. Check out The Greatest Gift in Honor and lemme know what you think, on both this and the cowritten full movie! =D**

**Disclaimer: No, I don't own Naruto. Or Mulan. But I do own Shikamaru, so hands off. xD**

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In an attempt to keep from sliding down the pole, Kankuro bit into it. Instead of his teeth giving way, he shaved off some of the wood as he slipped off, the weight of the, well, weights, on his wrists pulling him down.

Kiba did a less-than-impressive backward somersault off the pole, unable to get anywhere near the top.

Choji fell with such a force that when one of the weights hit the pole, it took out a good chunk of wood about a foot high. Miraculously, the pole stayed standing, albeit shorter than it once was. Choji cringed shamefully.

Tenten didn't do much better. She landed on her behind, slipping from the pole almost immediately. She walked back to the other men, rubbing the sore spot. No one else could get to the top and retrieve the arrow.

"We've got a long way to go," Neji muttered.

He took some long, thinner poles from a barrel and threw them out to the newly recruited soldiers. His aim was perfect, so many men caught their poles without much trouble. Tenten reached up to catch hers as well, but Kankuro caught it and snatched it away. Tenten placed her hands on her hips and scowled at him, not taking very good notice as Kankuro moved the pole behind her. With one swift gesture, he used it to knock her off her feet, flip her into the air, and land on her back. Then he innocently dropped her pole to the ground in front of her while she glared at him.

Neji didn't notice the scene, or if he did, he didn't comment. "Let's get down to business," he began, using his pole to flip two containers into the air, "to defeat the Huns."

The men (plus Tenten) gaped in amazement as he shattered the objects with his pole before they hit the ground.

He arranged the group into a semi-ordered fashion. They held out their own poles and grunted in response to his instruction.

"Did they send me daughters, when I asked for sons?"

As Neji continued, Kiba, grinning evilly, slipped a scorpion down Tenten's back. Her eyes widened in shock and discomfort. In an effort to get rid of it, she twisted this way and that, trying to shake it out. Her pole struck out at the half-dozen men closest to her, knocking them over. As with dominos, when those men went down, they fell into and knocked over anyone else near them.

Watching the scene from a distance with Hinata, Lee felt like banging his head on the rock. He settled for slapping his hand over his face and shaking his head. Hinata sighed and bowed her head.

"You're the saddest bunch I ever met," Neji scoffed. Using his pole to help, he leaped over the fallen men to get to Tenten. She was still flailing every which way, and even caught him in the stomach with the end of her pole.

Another flip and Tenten couldn't feel the scorpion anymore. Because something even more dangerous and frightening stared her in the face and ripped the pole from her grasp: Neji.

"But you can bet before we're through, Mister, I'll make a man, out of you," Neji vowed, taking a hold of her shirt and getting even more in-her-face.

Hinata pulled Lee's tail in an effort to keep him from going to try and pummel Neji right then and there. Ebisu sniffed disdainfully and made a few more notes on his clipboard.

For the next training part, Neji placed a board over a rock to make a small see-saw. On the end away from him and on the ground, he put three small round objects that slightly resembled apples. He positioned himself just so and took out a bow and nocked three arrows. By stepping on the half of the board in the air, the three things flew into the air. Neji aimed and then released. The arrows struck the objects and pinned them perfectly to a tree within three of the circles marked.

The other men tried their best, but they couldn't pin even one to the tree, within the marks or not.

"Tranquil as a forest, but on fire within," Neji continued teaching them.

Tenten nocked an arrow and was about to try again when Lee popped out of her bag of arrows, took the one on her strings, and replaced it with on that had the targeted object already on it. He then disappeared again just in time for Neji to come over and give Tenten a glare for cheating. She couldn't tell him it wasn't her idea, so she simply gave him a smile that said she hoped he would give her mercy.

The next training took place at the edge of a cliff. Neji stood with his back to the cliff and only a couple feet separating him from the edge. There was a bucket filled with water on his head and, armed only with one of the poles used in the second training, he deflected all stones thrown at him without spilling the water.

"Once you find your center, you are sure to win," was Neji's teaching for this.

When Tenten's turn came, she wobbled constantly to keep the water bucket balanced, spilling quite a bit in her effort to just keep it on her head. The other men seemed to be glad to have the chance to throw things at her, particularly Kankuro and Kiba. Choji simply studied his stone as though it were a foreign object.

Tenten ducked instinctively as the first rock came at her, thus flipping the bucket upside down. This of course drenched Tenten as every drop of water fell out. The flipped bucket landed on her head again. Blinded, all Tenten could do was wildly swing her pole around and hope.

One of the rocks was in the right place at the right time and Tenten got in a lucky hit. She whacked the stone baseball-style. Neji side-stepped before it could hit him, and the rock wound up bouncing harmlessly off Choji's stomach. He looked down at it, unhurt and unconcerned.

When she guessed the air was clear of flying stones, Tenten lifted the bucket and shamefully looked at Neji, whose eyes were narrowed at her.

"You're a spineless, pale, pathetic lot, and you haven't got a clue," Neji sighed. "Somehow I'll make a man out of you."

Another training technique consisted of fishing without any equipment. Neji chopped into the water with his hand and brought it out again just as swiftly holding a fish.

Tenten was training next to Kankuro again at this time. She did her best to mimic Neji, and her hand came back out triumphantly holding… Kankuro's bare foot. She had accidentally flipped him so that his foot was in breathable air while his head (along with most of the rest of his body) was underwater. She was getting quite good at apologetic smiles as she placed the foot gently back into the water. Lee appeared just then, breathing underwater with a hollowed plant. He held out a fish for her.

The next training took place at night. The men were sent out to run through an open field with fiery arrows sailing everywhere.

"I'm never gonna catch my breath," Choji panted as he ran. He stopped suddenly and sucked in his stomach to avoid getting burned, then continued running for his life.

"Say good-bye to those who knew me," Kankuro grunted as he tripped and fell. An arrow on fire caught him just then and he jumped into the air, screaming, and ran around like crazy, trying to get it out and put the fire out as well.

"Why was I a fool in school for cutting gym?" Kiba moaned. They were attempting at that time to cut through cement with their faces. Kiba smashed his face into the block of cement with little restraint. Consequently, he came back up again black and blue and minus teeth before he collapsed.

Up next was hand-to-hand combat. Tenten drew the misfortune of facing Neji. She barely blocked and dodged his easier attacks, then was sent flying backwards from a punch to the face. She landed hard against the trunk to a tree where Lee and Hinata were hiding.

Lee sent Neji a venomous glare as he grabbed a wet towel and gave Tenten's face a quick wash while Hinata fanned Tenten.

"This guy's got them scared to death," Lee commented, still scowling.

"I hope he doesn't see right through me," Tenten murmured, exhausted. Lee pushed her back up again and back into training.

Another type of training consisted of leaping across rapids by balancing on one pole sticking up out of the water at a time.

"Now I really wish that I knew how to swim," Choji moaned. He was the first in line, Neji right behind him. He flailed on one pole, trying to catch his balance before he fell into the water. Neji stopped in time on the pole behind him, but the other men didn't see it coming and crashed right into Neji. Neji held his ground somehow, but others were left without anything solid beneath their feet.

Another target training involved exploding dragon-head cannons. The Hun scarecrow target stood unharmed in the open field, while the grounds all around it exploded.

Just as Tenten lit her own cannon, which she was sure would hit the target, Kiba came along and "accidentally" knocked over the stand that was holding the cannon in place. Before the cannon could fall to the ground, Tenten foolishly grabbed it and hugged it to her. Before she could re-aim, however, the fuse reached its end and the dragon-head took off in the opposite direction. Tenten was covered in black marks from the cannon.

The dragon head found its target – Ebisu's tent. Just as Ebisu stepped out with his clipboard, the cannon blew up his tent and slightly scorched Ebisu, who was more angry than hurt.

As this went on, Neji was giving them more general advice, the first part of which the men could already quote along with him. "Be a man!"

And Neji said, "We must be swift as the coursing river..."

"Be a man!" the small army of new recruits repeated.

"...With all the force of a great typhoon," Neji continued, "'(Be a man!)' with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon."

That night, no one saw Neji on the rocks close to the camp as he looked at the huge pole in the distance with the arrow still sticking out of it. The look on his face was dangerously close to hopelessness and defeat.

The next day, the men were jogging along the cliffs. On their shoulders they carried a pole with sandbags tied on either end. Ebisu came along to watch and take notes, as was his job, but he rode a horse rather than kill himself with a burden that was too much.

"Time is racing toward us, 'til the Huns arrive," Neji told the men. "Heed my every order, and you _might_ survive."

During the course of this, Ebisu got Neji's attention, who was jogging in the front of the group. With his paint brush, he pointed out Tenten, struggling to keep up but lagging far behind.

She stumbled and fell. Even when Lee and Hinata hurried to try and get her to get back to her feet, she couldn't, exhausted. When Hinata noticed Neji coming, she and Lee barely had enough time to hide themselves in Tenten's shirt before Neji reached them.

With a disapproving look to Tenten, Neji picked up her load and placed it on his own shoulders, then ran back to catch up with the other men.

Tenten bowed her head, hating that she was so weak. She wanted – needed – to prove herself able to do something right.

That night, as Tenten was walking back to her tent, Neji met her with Shino following.

"You're unsuited for the rage of war," Neji told her, dropping Shino's reins in her hand. "So pack up, go home, you're through. How could I make a man out of you?"

Bitterly disappointed, but thinking maybe, just maybe, he was right, Tenten turned and took a few steps, prepared to leave as he had ordered. But as she crossed the shadow of the pole with the arrow still, she felt a flash of determination. She tied the weights to her wrists. She would get that arrow.

The night passed. Tenten tried and failed, tried again and failed, and repeated this many times. As she worked throughout the night, Neji's words kept echoing through her mind.

"To be a man, we must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon."

An idea struck Tenten as she stared at the weights just before dawn. Perhaps they had more meaning than she had originally thought.

She wrapped the weights around the pole and pulled. Yes, this could work. She pulled on the weights and pushed with her feet and she climbed the pole.

She was almost halfway up as Choji, the first to wake up, stepped from his tent. Over the course of the next ten minutes, a crowd gathered beneath the pole. They were saying something, but she couldn't make out words. And perhaps it was just her imagination, but many of them seemed to be cheering her on.

Her feet slipped, but her grip on the weights never slackened. Pulling harder, Tenten managed to get her feet back in place and keep climbing upwards. The sunlight brightened and showed more clearly the determination and sweat on her face. Just as she reached the top, Neji emerged from his own tent. She threw the arrow down and it embedded itself in the ground just in front of him.

Neji looked up, startled. Tenten just grinned down at him, weary but triumphant. Slowly, a grin of satisfaction crossed his face.

That was the start of success. She gave the rest of the men a sudden boost of confidence and determination. In the weeks that followed, everything began going better as they trained, Neji's advice still following them everywhere.

"To be a man, we must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon."

Every mark on the tree was hit with arrows and the apple-ish things, without a single miss.

When they jogged again with the burdens, Tenten was in the lead, with Neji yards behind her.

In hand-to-hand combat, Tenten managed to hold her own against Neji and even knock him flat with a kick to the face. His response was to touch his sore jaw and grin at her in satisfaction.

When they tried walking over the rapids on the tall poles again, Choji practically cart-wheeled across, the others nearly dancing right behind him.

The next time Neji tossed them poles and arranged them in a group like last time, Kankuro again caught Tenten's pole. Then he offered it to her with trying anything funny.

They ran through the field of flying, burning arrows again, and this time no one was so much as scratched.

Hitting concrete with their faces had a better effect this time. Each one cracked neatly right down the middle, and no injury to those who did the cracking.

When fishing, instead of catching simply one fish, Tenten stood up proudly with a total of four.

The Hun scarecrow exploded from a dragon-head cannon finding its true mark.

The new recruits completed their training and worked together well.

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**So, did you like it? I know I enjoyed writing it, even if I did have trouble describing some of the training stuff they were working with. You all know what I was talking about when I tried describing the archery training, right? The apple-ish stuff? xD;  
****Kankuro: I'm Yao. But why am I the only sand ninja here? o_O  
****Choji: Maybe Kaiti ran out of Leaf ninja. Anyways, I'm Chien-Po.  
****Kiba: Yeah, right. Where's Shikamaru, then? Kaiti claims he's the best, but I didn't see that lazy guy anywhere. I'm Ling.  
****Tenten: Kaiti couldn't find a good place to put him, so I'm using his name for the time I'm illegally in the army. Other leaf ninja that don't appear in here will probably be put somewhere else when she does a full-movie fanfic. In case you couldn't tell, I'm Mulan. ;D  
****Neji: I'm Shang. You didn't honestly make me sing all that, did you?  
****Ebisu: *hmph* I hope you know I'm completely disgusted at being cast as Shi Fu.  
****Lee: I am the guardian of lost souls! I am the powerful, the pleasurable, the indestructible Mushu!  
****Hinata: Uhm, I'm… Crikee.  
****Shino: Kahn. Do I honestly seem like the horse type? Kaiti, Hinata and I need to switch.  
****Kaiti: Yeah, yeah, sorry if everyone's unhappy with their parts, but hey, I did my best. xD Shino, you're Kahn and Hinata's Crikee because Mushu's bossy and you wouldn't take that, while Hinata's humble enough to do as he orders. =P  
In the full version, people may be swapping parts to some extent, but most of it should be pretty similar. Reviews, please? Thank you! x3**


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